24 April 2008

Vanessa the Visionary!

I stayed home with Benjamin today so Vanessa could attend a Microsoft(!) event. No, it was not your usual Microsoft event, as there were no IT nerds and geeks discussing the newest release of Microsoft software. Actually, the majority of the attendees were women! Based on the usual gender breakdown of Microsoft events, I am sure this was quite the statistical anomaly.

The event Vanessa attended was called "Vision to Venture: The Event for Women Entreprenuers". She was initially nervous about attending, since she doesn't have a business (yet), but I encouraged her to go, to at least hear the speakers and do some networking. There was a friend who also attended who had a code that knocked the price of the admission by half, but it was already pretty cheap to begin with. Plus all attendees received a free copy of Office Small Business 2007. They also gave a way a laptop, but alas my dear wife's name was not picked.

Vanessa said she learned a lot at the event. The three main speakers were all quite informative and entertaining. One of the interesting tidbits of info is that women start up more businesses than men. Another interesting fact is that many small businesses fail because they don't think big, and thus shoot themselves in the foot in regards to growth potential.

Seems Microsoft is smart in doing some forward thinking by advertising their small business services to these bright ladies. As for my bright lady, she tells me her priority at this point is raising our boy, and so will wait until she has more time before she makes the move from vision to venture.